Terse review - KM handbook vol2

Do not have volume 1 at hand, so cannot speak to that collection, here are some thoughts on volume 2. This is a speed review as I do not have the smarts to cover the entire field and did not read the volume’s 739p cover to cover. 

* Expensive! $70 from Amazon for Vol 1 - 2002, and $70 for Vol 2 - 2003

KM technologies 

* Incomplete coverage: the 9 chapters on technologies cover storage, search, ontologies, evolution of technologies, knowledge assets, knowledge dissemination, P2P, knowledge discovery, OLAP. I missed worthwhile treatments of blogs, wikis, social software, document management, GIS, helpdesks, CRM, SCM, expertise finders, auto-profiling, mobile KM, JIT delivery. 

* Too basic- OK this is a handbook, but OLAP?? 

* Skimpy - 2 pages for collaboration and groupware??

Outcomes of KM

This section was much better, chapters on capability an competitive advantage, achieving outcomes, KM for productivity gains, agility and roles, K innovation strategy, valuation of Km function, measuring KM investments. 

* Repetitive - many of the valuation and measurement chapters cover similar ground and techniques
 

KM in action

10 chapters covering current practice, best practice, strategy, KM in the Navy, KM evolution at Dow, KM at Ford, IC and EL at Cisco, KM in reinsurance, military KM, KM in MS consulting services. 

* Current practice - this was aimed at large organizations, I missed cutting edge stuff on customer and expertise profiling, CoP & KM measurements treatment was very general, nothing on key knowledge practices, how to work with tacit knowledge, ways to deal with knowledge loss. Much of the innovation in knowledge-based products has died as VC money dried. 

* Monitoring progress - this is based on the APQC model missed CMM approaches 

* Case studies - enjoyed these, but wonder just how to select and evaluate individual context & culture and their role in adoption and acceptance. Had trouble generalizing from these examples.

KM horizon

This section covered a wide field, from KM education, value networks (excellent), complexity, commercialization, convergence with e-business (still futuristic?) and a final summary (weak).

General observations 

My overall impression is this volume suffers from too light editing, there are large differences in writing & presentation style that make chapter transitions difficult. Clearly the editing cycle was slow and long, as most of the references to point to pre 2000 stuff – a time when KM was riding high before the fall, yet the book appears in 2003! This material is dated even before it hit the shelves IMO. 

Get the feeling we have surpassed the need for big, expensive reference works like this. KM is dynamic, by its very nature, we are always looking for new or emergent stuff – social taxonomies, collaborative writing and annotation tools, mobile KM. I would rather hitch my cart to blogs, talk to my personal SME network via SMS, VOIP or IM, or scan  RSS feeds from Del.icio.us, using trusted sources as a filter. 

Would I buy this for my personal library? – NO, would I use it as a reference via the library? – hardly there is better material available on the internet and in single volumes rather than collective works. 

Now I would sure appreciate reading your views.

Note: this was posted to the AOK Yahoo list